Takata defends actions over faulty airbags

A senior Takata executive defended the embattled Japanese auto parts firm Thursday before a US Senate panel investigating faulty airbags tied to several deaths and hundreds of injuries. Hiroshi Shimizu, Takata’s senior vice president for global quality assurance, said his company took responsibility for three US deaths related to what he labelled “anomalies” in its airbags. Takata is accused of knowing for years about the problems, in which its airbags can deploy with excessive explosive power and send shrapnel into a car’s passengers, without making them public.